Act 3 — Romeo and Juliet — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Act 3
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Mercutio's and Tybalt's deaths, Romeo's banishment, Juliet's reaction, the wedding night, and Capulet's fury when Juliet refuses Paris.
Key quotations: 'O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!', 'A plague o' both your houses!', 'you shall find me a grave man', 'Thy beauty hath made me effeminate', 'fire-eyed fury be my conduct now', 'O, I am fortune's fool!', 'Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds', 'Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!', 'There is no world without Verona walls', 'It was the nightingale, and not the lark', 'I would the fool were married to her grave!', 'Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!', 'I think it best you married with the county'.
Structure: Mercutio's death as the play's turning point from comedy to tragedy, and Juliet's isolation as her parents and the Nurse turn against her.
OCR's question on this play is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the play elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the play, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts as the play shows it, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
